Do You Need a Jesus Who Can Beat You Up?
From Greg Boyd’s blog:
In an interview several years ago for Relevant Magazine, Mark Driscoll (well known pastor of Mars Hill in Seattle) said,
“In Revelation, Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” (You can find the original interview here).
I frankly have trouble understanding how a follower of Jesus could find himself unable to worship a guy he could “beat up” when he already crucified him. I also fail to see what is so worshipful about someone carrying a sword with “a commitment make someone bleed.” But this aside, I’m not at all surprised Driscoll believes the book of Revelation portrays Jesus as a “prize fighter.” This violent picture of Jesus, rooted in a literalistic interpretation of Revelation, is very common among conservative Christians, made especially popular by the remarkably violent Left Behind series.
The most unfortunate aspect of this misreading, as Driscoll’s comment graphically reveals, is that the “prize fighter” portrait of Jesus easily subverts the Jesus of the Gospels who out of love chooses to die for enemies rather than use his power against them and who commands his followers to do the same (see e.g. Mt 5:43-45; Lk 6:27-36). In fact, if you read these passages carefully you’ll notice that Jesus makes loving enemies and refusing all violence the prerequisite for being considered a child of God! Loving enemies like Jesus commands (and like the rest of the NT teaches, e.g. Rom. 12: 14, 17-21; 1 Pet 2:21-23) requires that we crucify our fallen impulse to resort to violence, while the model of Jesus as a “prize fighter” with a “commitment to make someone bleed” allows us to indulge it. If we can dismiss the peace-loving Jesus as a “hippie, diaper, halo Christ,” then we’re free to wish and even inflict vengeance on our enemies all we like — and feel righteous about it!
(To read more, go here.)
Jesus freely chose to die for sinful men and women. There is one suggestion in the letter to the Hebrews that he passed by angels to save men. So it seems no effort was ever made to save Satan or the angels that may have joined him in rebellion against God. Scripture does suggest their ultimate fate will be to experience the full wrath of God. Jesus shows love and compassion beyond our ability to fully grasp, but scripture does seem to teach that a day of judgment is coming even if we don’t like to think about it. It also appears women and men that side with Satan against God will experience a similar fate. God’s wrath against sin and His intention to destroy it is a good thing.
For what it is worth,
Geezer
This makes me want to get hold of Boyd’s books.
Thank you for this post, Mike. I haven’t read the original interview you referred to, but I also am concerned about the unwillingness of many in the church to turn the other cheek and to pray for our enemies.
On the other hand, I wonder if there might be some middle ground here. Like Driscoll, I find portrayals of Jesus as a passive deity uninspiring. Jesus never said that his purpose is to help us get what we want out of this life, to help us avoid any discomfort or trouble that will make us grow. He never said that his will is to submit to my will. I believe one of the biggest problems of the church in the Americas is, as the title of the classic book says, “Your God Is Too Small.”
Surely there must be a way of holding on to a view of a Jesus powerful enough to worship while still renouncing the world’s love affair with power.
Knowing nothing about Driscoll’s article, I do think it is important to distinguish between holy vengeance and hateful vengeance. Was God unjust when He struck down Uzzah for steadying the Ark? Ah, but that was the Old Testament. God didn’t change between covenants. Was God unjust or any less loving when He struck down Ananias and Saphira for lying to Him? Where’s the mercy and forgiveness in that account? The point is, Father NEVER acts out of hate but He can and does exercise His Strength to destroy when His perfect holiness calls for it. He can and does show grace and mercy, but that is BECAUSE Jesus bore the punishment and destruction and death that we deserved. But for those outside of Christ, when they have refused over and over and over again to respond to His overtures of love… yes “He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.” He Himself said He COULD have called twelve legions of angels to His aid (and I bet THEY could have made someone bleed). But He CHOSE surrender and death for US. And for us as His followers, there are times for extreme “bear on my body the marks of Jesus” mercy (Galatians 6:17) and there are times for “Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind, and for a time you will be unable to see the light of the sun.” (Acts 13:11). Only a life HIDDEN in the Holy Spirit can navigate those extremes which are both possible and probable in the life of a follower of the Lion of Judah and the Lamb that was slain.
Just picked up Boyd’s “The Myth of a Christian Nation” from the library. Excited to start it.
As for Driscoll, I find him to mostly be a sad and angry man. Anyone who writes, “Sixty percent of Christians are chicks. And the forty percent that are dudes are still sort of chicks,” clearly has some issues to work out when it comes to his Chevy-truck-commercial versions of masculinity and femininity.
It astounds qb that Driscoll has any following at all, still less an army of thousands. To check out everything that is banal and overwrought about Driscoll-style and pseudo-emergent religion, piont at http://www.marshillchurch.org and noodle around. Even the pastor of the Albuquerque campus looks, from an internet distance, to adopt all of the “Things Christians Like” punch lines as his own.
Ugh.
qb
Yes, Driscoll has confused Christian manhood with the Marlboro Man. How to preach like Jesus: holes in jeans, shirt untucked, belligerent tone, condescending message. You know, vintage Jesus.
I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments… But I was encouraged to read this interview with Driscoll last month: http://issuu.com/relevantmagazine/docs/neue03_digitalissue_v3/30
He seems to be trying to tone down his rhetoric, and he’s got some pretty effective insights on “extended adolescence”… especially in an increasingly fatherless generation.
The cover of the article says something to the effect of his trying to be “Less Shock Jock” (and referenced the same interview from 2007) … which was precisely the reason why I wrote him off a few years ago… He was just cranking up the craziness. I’ll probably at least give him another listen in the future, just to see where he’s at.
Side note: I am SO glad that my theology, politics, convictions, and personal reflections weren’t published ten, five, or even two years ago!
It’s the “hippie diaper halo Jesus” who took up the servant’s towel, taught us to turn the other cheek and ultimately laid down his life for us – and taught us to do the same. And the first shall be last.
This is just another reason I think Driscoll is bad for Christendom.
I have thought much about the ” violent grace” that Jesus offers. Rather than violent God of the OT Jesus gives me the grace as the violence is against him not Him against me. Yet they are the same God. One of the best essays about God of the OT is the idea that it is the scary people not the scary God. It is a tribute to the faithfulness of God that we all still exist. Even now we don’t get it. Just look at the mean spirit of many “Christians” against others of the world. For one, I am grateful God still loves me and allows His Spirit to live in me as I seek to be more like him.
I like Ken’s comment. Christians don’t object to the idea that Jesus could whip you. (And the apocalyptic sections of the New Testament have him doing that to the ungodly). On the other hand, his mission was to give his life as a ransom for many, the toughest thing this tough man could do. I understand those two sides as the two halves of the Gospel of Mark.
I read this post on Boyd’s blog and like it very much. I don’t know the context of Discroll’s comments about Jesus but have read several tweets quoting the part about Jesus being a “prize-fighter.” I don’t think Boyd is trying to suggest that Jesus is in any way a passive-weakling. What he’s trying to counter is a notion that portrays Jesus as using the worldly form of power – coercive violence – rather than the gospel form of power – self-sacrificial servant-hood – as the means of accomplishing God’s redemptive will. In other words, the victory of God is not accomplished in Jesus Christ by using muscles and machine-guns but with a foot-washing towel and a Roman cross.
Grace and peace,
Rex
Q, I’m not trying to call you out, but I am curious. Is there room in that hippie version of Jesus for Him to strike down Ananias and Saphira or to blind an enemy of the Gospel or to suggest that torah-banging Jews should just emasculate themselves because they are harming the Gospel…? Can your Jesus author such “violence”? Can He send billions of people to hell because they deserve it for not bowing to His Lordship and for refusing to accept His Death for their sins?
Not Q, but may I answer?
1. Yes, there is room for judgment from God. But what I don’t read is the human (pre-resurrection) Jesus getting in a slap-down with someone like that. Rather, he died for them.
2. The story of Saul, I presume? Again, the human Jesus didn’t do that. The Resurrected One (still human though “in heaven,” of course) did blind him as an act of grace.
3. Sorry, the third one is Paul, not Jesus. That moment in Galatians isn’t Paul “at his best” — but however we understand it, he didn’t go around with a cutting knife after his enemies.
4. He can, of course, if he wishes. Whether or not he will (e.g., universalism or annihilationism) is another question. Again, that tells us nothing about how the human Jesus lived and modeled life for us.
Real men (and women) who follow Jesus wrap towels around their waists, turn the other cheek, and pray for their enemies.
Erin, I am so with you and agree. I just want to leave room in our hearts for a God who has every right to destroy but CHOOSES to love and give His life…
Number 2 was actually Paul with Elymas in Acts 13:
Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind, and for a time you will be unable to see the light of the sun.”
The issue is: is it *my* pride and ego and temper at stake or is the honor of Jesus and the spiritual safety of others at stake. Paul here was furious, not for his own sake, as if he had something personal against Elymas… but the Holy Spirit inside Paul was furious that this Elymas was full of all kinds of deceit and trickery.
So Luke the doctor writes, “Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit…” Being filled with the Holy Spirit has different “looks”…. sometimes it looks like a Lion, but I agree that the modus operandi of a saint is as a lamb to be slain.
Stephen (and Erin)
I didn’t mean to imply that there is no room for Jesus to be the avenger/warrior. I just don’t think Driscoll leaves room for him to be anything but.
(I kind of have a historical beef w/Driscoll and that shaded my comment heavily.)
I think that either view to the exclusion of the other is unhealthy.
Thanks Q and Erin. I think often times we want to be able to easily classify our mysterious Father and His Son and He simply replies with, “I AM” And to roughly quote Mr. Lewis via Lucy, “He isn’t a safe (tame?) Lion, but He is Good!”
Stephen,
I think you’re right in saying that God, being the only one who is righteous enough to determine who lives or dies, when he became human, chose to die rather than kill his enemies.
The Cross isn’t just atonement, its ethic. Its God showing us (without humans interpreting events as God sanctioned) that he loves his enemies so much that he’d rather die himself, than kill, even justly.
And so we go, empowered by faith in the resurrection, and do likewise.
Justin, God is the only Righteous one but He does live in His people, so that is why the deaths Ananias and Sapphira and the blinding of Elymas were possible, because that wasn’t Peter and Paul getting revenge… that was God’s judgment exercised through His people. The ethic is: love your neighbor as myself. I wouldn’t harm my neighbor. But full of the Holy Spirit, I might strike a man blind who is an enemy of the Gospel and is causing others to stumble by his deceit. I might. But I may also turn the other cheek and let him crucify me. The only way to know is to “keep in step with the Spirit.” Jesus didn’t just give us a book. He gave us His mind and spirit. (1 Cor 2). By that Spirit, we can put to death the misdeeds of our own body and know His good, pleasing and perfect will. THAT is good news.
Do we think that Peter killed Ananias and Sapphira, or that Paul blinded Elymas? How and why did these deaths and the blinding occur, according to the witness of the Acts? Are these “examples” part of a “pattern” that disciples of Jesus should seek to replicate? Who, if anyone, should have the “power” to do such things in the name of Jesus? To whom would such a person be accountable for such behaviors?
Did our brother Paul personally seek to castrate those who were “troubling” the Galatians, or did he merely suggest, ironically and impolitically, that they should “castrate themselves” and fullfill their obsession with the flesh?
Many people in American culture are socialized to admire violence and to make heroes of those who exhibit their “strength” and do violence to others. To make Jesus into this kind of “hero” is a travesty. As long as we are young and strong, and our strength gets us what we want, then we may think that we are something to be admired, and we may be admired by those who want to be what they think we are. Then, eventually, someone stronger emerges — perhaps one of those who has wanted to be like us — or . . . we grow old. We become “weak,” the thing that we once preyed upon. Years ago I bought a house from an old-time gangster, a man who had fought battles and survived, and had made his way by imposing will on others. Now he was old and weak and poor, unable to make money as he had in the past. He kept a huge and vicious Doberman in the basement — what a mess that turned out to be! — and carried a .357 Magnum revolver wherever he went. For years we were still finding stray bullets all over the house. He was a pathetic figure, terrified of those to whom he had once been an example.
May God have mercy.
d
There seem to be some that think others are advocating vigilante type violence – with the emphasis on us, not on what the Father or Son may do in their infinite wisdom and strength. In scripture we see Jesus casting the money changers out of the temple, casting out demons and sending them hogs that then run off a cliff into the abyss, etc.
Did the guy that has been the object of this charade advocate that we use violence against God’s enemies? Wasn’t he was speaking of God the Son being fully willing and capable of taking out His, and our enemies. Please leave room for the vengeance of God, after all it belongs to Him.
For what it is worth,
Geezer
We see anger from Christ on occasions (as has been pointed out by His driving the money changers out of the Temple). I think that we need a balanced view of God. We try to pigeonhole God into whatever camp fits our point and ignore other examples. Then again we often do that with Bible passages too.